With the Pokémon trading card game finally bringing those precocious pocket monsters to the App Store, it was only a matter of time before that other 90s, vaguely Japanese, childhood nostalgia hot property Power Rangers tried to get in on the action. Yes, Power Rangers: UNITE is a Power Rangers collectible card game. But is it as mighty as the morphing rangers themselves? Find out in this edition of It Came From Canada!

Obviously you should have a lot of reverence for the Power Rangers franchise to get the most out of Power Rangers: UNITE. But we should also examine its merits as a card game, too. Perhaps given its young target audience, the systems are actually pretty simple. Both players face each other and lay cards on their five-by-two grid. Unit cards placed on the front row, like rangers and powerful Zord robots, provide defense against enemy units directly opposite them. If there is no enemy, the card can target the opponent's health directly. The game ends when one player runs out of health or cards. Meanwhile, players use the back row to activate various spells like drawing from the enemy’s discard pile or increasing a unit’s likelihood of scoring a critical hit. One particularly neat mechanic has players placing a ranger on the board in their civilian form only to then morph them into their Power Ranger form on the next turn. Strategy ultimately boils down to effectively managing your offensive units. You have to know who to pit against who, who to power up and when, and when to tag someone out or sacrifice them.

But really, Power Rangers: UNITE wisely places its focus on copious amounts of Power Rangers fan service. As players build their deck they can choose from over 20 years’ worth of heroes, villains, and giant robots. The artwork is clean and high-res, the sound and music samples are exciting and numerous, and the original Mighty Morphin' series is, deservedly, over-represented. The limited animations somewhat bring down the production value - images just slide around - but the volume of content is still impressive and especially noticeable when encountering new challengers online.

While it may not be as provocative as the recent POWER/RANGERS short film, at least Power Rangers: UNITE won’t subtly mock fans for still enjoying the franchise. It should be launching everywhere soon.

Stone Blade Entertainment has updated SolForge with a new Campaign Mode for solo players. You'll be able to play missions using pre-designed decks against an AI to win rewards. Some of the missions will allow you to build your own decks and see how you fare as well.

The update also includes 48 new cards that do not bode well for the rest of the world. The cards can be found in booster packs, legendary chests, and prize packs, or you can purchase them in Reign of Varna booster packs and chests.

Check out the new campaign and cards in SolForge by downloading it for free.

Storm Casters, by Get Set Games, has gone on sale. Now you can get all your action-packed dungeoneering for less.

The collectible card game lets you collect battle cards to get elemental spells and evolve your character. It also has over 50 levels and 30 different enemy types to discover. Each floor has a limited time for you to explore, so you'll need to act fast in order to get to the next level.

You can download Storm Casters on the App Store for $0.99 for a limited time.

Metaversal Studios is currently working on a new officially licensed game based on the BlazBlue fighting game series, called BlazBlue: Battle Cards.

You can challenge your friends to a real-time card battle using one of the 9 customizable fighters: Azrael, Bang, Hakumen, Hazama, Jin, Noel, Ragna, Tager, and Taokaka. You can also collect battle cards to gain more attacks, defenses, counters, projectiles, and special moves. The game will, of course, allow you to purchase card packs to enhance your deck and give you the edge. After it launches, Metaversal Studios also plans to add more BlazBlue fighters to the roster.

BlazBlue: Battle Cards will be launching on the App Store soon, but until then take a peek at this teaser video.

In the game you not only collect cards, but can use them to craft new, more powerful cards. This allows you to customize your deck with over 500,000 possible cards to fit your play-style. The cards use a 3-element battle mechanic in a "rock, paper, scissors" fashion - Fire, Nature, and Water battle it out against each other. Earthcore includes a single player campaign as well as ranked multiplayer leagues and online PvP modes to satisfy competitive players.

There's no official launch date set yet, but until then you can drool over AppSpy's preview video of Earthcore: Shattered Elements.

Indie studio FrozenShard has released their newest game, Monster Battles: TCG. Similar to Pokemon, Monster Battles lets you collect, train, and battle hundreds of monsters from around the world.

Each monster has a unique name and personality and you can evolve them into more powerful versions. Currently there are 120 unique cards with more than 200 Monsters. FrozenShard plans to add more every month.

The digital collectible card game by Stone Blade Entertainment, SolForge, has been updated to include a new sharing feature. Players can now give their friends copies of their favorite cards without losing the original.

The update also includes the Imprisoned Heralds expansion, which has sixty cards with the four special Heralds for each faction, and two new keyword mechanics: Assault and Upgrade. If you prefer aggressive tactics Assault gives your creatures powerful bonuses. For a more strategic mind, Upgrade lets you swap out creatures that are already on the field.

Check out the new Imprisoned Heralds expansion for SolForge (and the new sharing feature) for free on the App Store.

Jagex, the developers behind Transformers: Universe and the long-running RuneScape, have unveiled at RuneFest that they are working on Chronicle: RuneScape Legends (working title), which is a collectible card game set in the world of Gielinor. The game is set to launch in 2015 and will allow players to craft their own miniature RPGs against enemies, including classic boss monsters from the MMORPG, and take on other players in PvP.

James Sweatman, lead designer of Chronicle: RuneScape Legends, commented on the game at its announcement event:

"We've been quietly developing Chronicle: RuneScape Legends since the start of the year to ensure that it's not only a fun and compelling player experience, but one still very much interwoven into the rich lore of RuneScape. We're looking forward to sharing more information on the game over the coming months, especially in regards to Chronicle's debut on tablet and mobile!

As previously mentioned, Chronicle: RuneScape Legends is set to launch sometime next year.

Nintendo characters on the App Store? Have they really gotten that desperate? Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. While it may be strange and novel seeing Pikachu and company running around on an Apple product, the fact is the Pokémon Company has always had some degree of autonomy from its Mario masters. And now they’ve used that independence to bring the wildly popular Pokémon Trading Card Game to the iPad. We catch ‘em all in this edition of It Came From Canada!

If the smash success of Hearthstone has taught us anything it’s that card games work great on the iPad, and Pokémon Trading Card Game Online is no different. Dealing with digital decks is just so much more convenient than laying out physical spaces, shuffling cards, and keeping track of various pieces. Plus, having a computer present to teach and reinforce the rules is a lot more reliable than leaving it up to human error.

However, this really is just a straightforward virtual translation of the Black and White starter editions of the actual trading card game. Battle animations aren’t flashy and graphics are kind of flat in general; they're not even as stylish as the beloved anime. Meanwhile, online is used for simple stat-tracking and basic multiplayer matches. Players should also make sure to register an account, because otherwise they’ll be forced to sit through the lengthy tutorial each time they launch the game.

But modest production values aside, there’s a reason why this game has been so popular for so long, and it’s not just marketing. It simply does a great job at capturing what’s fun about Pokémon RPGs in card game form. Arranging teams of monsters, evolving starters you’ve grown particularly fond of, and strategically unleashing powerful elemental attacks is just as satisfying here as it is on the screen of a Nintendo handheld.

Since Pokémon is a worldwide phenomenon, expect Pokémon Trading Card Game Online to launch everywhere soon. And while it’s not totally fair to use it as a litmus test for Nintendo’s future on the App Store, it’s at least interesting to think about.

Polish developers Tequila Games have unveiled Earthcore: Shattered Elements - a collectible card game for iOS that is set to come out early next year.

The unique point to Earthcore is the 'Card Crafting' feature, which will allow players to utilize the cards in their collection and fuse cards together to form new, more powerful cards, with over half a million of these combinations available. The game also features a Rock, Paper, Scissors-esque element system, with cards belonging to fire, water, and nature elements. In addition to this, the game also has a 'Risk' system, with cards with more special powers creating a higher loss to the player if they're defeated, meaning players will have to be careful when using these more powerful cards.

Lukas Deszczulka, the CEO of Tequila Games, had this to say on their upcoming CCG:

Following on from our history of creating successful casual games, Earthcore: Shattered Elements represents a big step forward and a very significant investment for Tequila Games. We are targeting both mid and hardcore players with a AAA title in a genre our team knows and loves. We’re currently working with some very experienced tabletop game design experts to innovate the CCG genre and we've invested heavily in the single player story-driven campaign, which is often neglected in games of this type. We’re sure that both new and experienced players alike will find Earthcore:Shattered Elements very different to anything that they've played before.

Earthcore: Shattered Elements is set to launch on iPhone and iPad in the first quarter of 2015.

Playdek and Stone Blade Entertainment have released Rise of Vigil - an in-app expansion for the iOS card game Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer. The expansion adds a new energy shard mechanic, which gives players the ability to upgrade heroes, monsters, and constructs. This changes the dynamic of certain cards; making weaker ones potentially much more powerful.

Rise of Vigil also includes 46 new center deck cards; including 11 new Monster cards, 24 new Hero cards, 11 new Construct cards, and new starting deck art as well as new background theme art and music.

Joel Goodman, CEO of Playdek says, “We’re excited to release this new expansion to the popular Ascension series and we thank fans for waiting. The new energy shard cards energize the gameplay by making players rethink old strategies.”

You can download Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer for free, and purchase the Rise of Vigil in-game update for $3.99.